The present invention relates the field of the auxiliary devices for the movement of ammunitions and, more in detail, it relates to an ammunition hoist.
It is known that ammunitions, in particular the especially heavy ones, which are suited to be manually moved by one or more operators due to their dimensions and to their weight, are moved by means of hoists that are specially designed for this purpose.
In particular, in the naval field, ammunitions typically comprise a first part, the so-called projectile (i.e. the element which is physically expelled from the piece when fired), and a second part containing a propulsive charge (which provides the kinetic energy needed by the projectile to be expelled from the carriage of the piece).
Said ammunitions are stowed on a first lower deck of the ship and have to be able to be transported to the deckhouse, in order to then reach the turret of the piece from which they can be fired.
In order to do so, the hoist must lift the ammunitions through a second intermediate deck (main deck) or even through different decks, before reaching the deckhouse of the ship.
The ammunition hoists of the current type use a plurality of different stages, which are arranged in series and have the task of transporting the ammunition from the first deck, where there is a store configured to store the ammunitions, up to the so-called ladle, substantially in correspondence to the piece.
The structure of the hoists of the known type is determined not so much by functional reasons, but rather by historical reasons; indeed, originally, there were two hoists at the level of the first deck: the first one was destined to the projectile and the second one was destined to the charge.
The presence of two hoists necessary leads to the presence of two different motors, each one provided with a mechanical drive line and relative servomechanisms, as well as to the presence of a well determined stroke control between the different motors, which is possible thanks to the use of a cathode follower.
Furthermore, the hoists of the traditional type only allow a manual unloading of the ammunition (the so-called strike-down phase). In detail, the ammunition was manually taken from an upper station, instead of being delivered to the loading ladle, and it was brought back to the store.